<\/p>\n
EASTHAMPTON \u2014 It\u2019s a safe bet that most local musicians you see toiling away in local clubs are doing it largely for the love of their art.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s one thing to see a guy in his 70s perform tunes out of devotion to his music. It\u2019s even more impressive to learn the singer involved just released his first album earlier this year.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s what you have in John Lentz, who will play at Luthier\u2019s Co-op in Easthampton<\/a> on Nov. 13 from 7 to 8:30 p.m.<\/p>\n Lentz, who makes his home in Turners Falls, has been a musician his whole adult life, starting out busking on the West Coast in the 1970s. As usual, real life \u2014 getting a job and raising a family \u2014 took center stage for a lengthy period, but Lentz always kept music on the back burner.<\/p>\n After moving to Massachusetts, he started attending the Vermont Jazz Center\u2019s summer workshops and met pianist Harvey Diamond. This led to Diamond inviting Lentz to jam with him in an unused rehearsal studio during the 2020 lockdown. Ultimately, the collaboration resulted in the album, \u201chow strange the road should be so easy,\u201d a diverse tapestry of jazz standards woven in with lesser-known tracks.<\/p>\n This will be just Lentz\u2019s fourth gig this year, so although he hopes to play out more often soon, this show is a great opportunity to both check him out and serve a good cause: Lentz is donating all proceeds from the show to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.<\/p>\n And while Lentz leans heavily on jazz standards, he\u2019s not afraid to swim in other musical waters.<\/p>\n \u201cI like to dive deeply into the jazz catalog, finding songs that are less well known by the general public,\u201d he said in a recent interview with The Republican. \u201cI also incorporate more current music; at this gig, I\u2019ll also be singing songs by Tom Waits and Billie Eilish.\u201d<\/p>\n That willingness to embrace diversity of sounds is reflected in the singers whom Lentz counts as influences: Van Morrison, Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, Sheila Jordan, and Dominique Eade, among others.<\/p>\n While Lentz performs with various musicians at different times, accompanying Lentz at the Nov. 13 show will be keyboardist Bill Winslow and bassist Wes Brown.<\/p>\n \u201cI currently perform with a small group of pro and semi-pro musicians. They each have strong professional ethics, great listening skills, and are nice people and fun to create with,\u201d he said. \u201cMost importantly, we all have the desire to serve the music.\u201d<\/p>\n When talking about what he likes about going out and playing before a live audience, Lentz mentioned that he recently described himself to another singer as being \u201c60% storyteller and 40% musician.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cSinging songs and storytelling have an ancient history and were offered by a teller or bard to groups of people. That\u2019s just how it works. So, there\u2019s that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut also, there\u2019s just the immediacy of performing live, where one can try out ideas and get instant feedback on whether they work or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.masslive.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EASTHAMPTON \u2014 It\u2019s a safe bet that most local musicians you see toiling away in local clubs are doing it largely for the love of their art. But it\u2019s one thing to see a guy in his 70s perform tunes out of devotion to his music. It\u2019s even more impressive to learn the singer involved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2146630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2146630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2146631,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146630\/revisions\/2146631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2146630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2146630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2146630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}